Kathy McCall looks up at her husband Martin McCall who is leaving on his first deployment on the USS Spruance. The USS Spruance departed yesterday morning on the ship's maiden deployment to the Western Pacific Ocean.
— Nelvin C. Cepeda / U-T San Diego

Saying her last good bye to her boyfriend, Jalisa Green gets a last minute hug from Merlin Wilkinson. Green who is assigned to the USS Spruance departed yesterday morning on the ship's maiden deployment.
— Nelvin C. Cepeda / U-T San Diego

Families and friends of the sailors of the USS Spruance stood pier side as the ship pulled away. The USS Spruance departed yesterday morning on the ship's maiden deployment to the Western Pacific Ocean.
— Nelvin C. Cepeda / U-T San Diego

Standing on the pier, Ana Hernandez uses her good bye poster for her borther Jesse Hernandez to shade her from the sun. Jesse Hernandez and the rest of the crew of the USS Spruance departed yesterday morning on the ship's ...
— Nelvin C. Cepeda / U-T San Diego

For the 279-person crew, it means an all-electric galley -- or kitchen -- for more low-fat cooking. That means French fries are prepared in a convection oven, not a fryer. Sailors bathe in rust-resistant stainless steel showers, and a larger crew lounge has added gym equipment.

It also means the ship is controlled by touch screens, and sailors look at modern color readouts, not the old gauges of days gone by.

“I joke that we can drive the ship from an iPad with our fingers,” said the Spruance skipper, Cmdr. George Kessler. “It is a joke. But it is also actually real in that we can do that.”

Twenty-one-year-old sailor Domonick Lane said his new radar equipment is pretty nice.

“From what I’ve heard, on the older ships the monitors that I work with were much, much older – less picture, less color. It was pretty much black screen with green radar stuff, like you’d see in old movies,” Lane said.

The Spruance was commissioned in October 2011. But Kessler and some others in the crew have been with the ship since around the time the keel was laid in May 2009.

It is named for Adm. Raymond A. Spruance, Navy commander at the Battle of the Midway, a pivotal moment for the United States in the Pacific during World War II.

The ship’s motto is “launch the attack.” It’s the second destroyer named for Spruance.

This deployment is years in the making, following the testing and training required to prepare a new warship for work.

It’s also two months later than expected, pushed back by the financial juggling the Navy had to do following the federal budget cuts known as sequestration.

The ship heads to the waters off Asia to put its new capabilities to use.

What technology doesn’t change is saying farewell.

The Spruance left on a crisp, sunny fall morning. Its journey could last six months, or however long it is called to serve.

As the ship pulled away from the San Diego Naval Base pier, small children could be heard crying. Stoic sailors in formal white uniforms lined the ship’s edge as the Spruance steamed toward Point Loma.

“Saying goodbye to my family was hard,” sailor Lane said before he left. “But being able to go to Asia – I’ve never been there. And to experience it with friends I’ve known since I joined the Navy is a big plus.”